June 2025. Our Young Advisors Group have submitted a response to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ open-ended intergovernmental working group on a new Optional Protocol to the UNCRC on the right to education.
The Young Advisors Group (YAG) consists of 20 children aged 12 to 17 from across Scotland. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland has a legal duty to involve children and young people in her work[1]. They support her in a range of ways such as helping develop her Strategic Plan,[2] participating in decisions about how the office is run, working with her staff on policy work and contributing to the promotion of children’s rights through videos[3], blogs[4] and taking part in online assemblies[5] which have been attended by thousands of children across Scotland. They have also made a video explaining their role to children and young people.[6]
This year the YAG have been working with the Commissioner and her team on education in Scotland, which is one of her strategic priorities. They helped develop participation resources and some of us joined the Commissioner and her team on visits to both primary and secondary schools as part of her office’s ongoing work on education. They also worked with the Commissioner to develop This is our lives – it matters a lot[7] which reported on children’s right to education in Scotland. This included producing videos explaining the findings.[8]
This submission was developed with a group of Young Advisors who were involved in visits to secondary schools across three local authority areas in Scotland and is based on their own experiences and those they heard about from other children.
The Young Advisors discussion focussed on senior phase (the final three years of secondary school) and discussed barriers to learning, attainment and attendance. This reflected the findings in the Commissioner’s recent report on education
What makes it difficult for children to attend secondary school and how does this affect them?
Long term illness and mental health conditions
Several of the YAG members had friends who had been absent from school for long periods, or intermittently, for health reasons and the YAG as a whole has been working on the right to health as part of the European Network of Young Advisors.[9]
“If you’re on long term sick you miss loads of lessons and then it’s rally hard to catch up.”
“Some teachers just don’t engage with helping to catch up and get you back where you need to be”.
“Teachers won’t always accept late work.
“A friend of mine was off for ages because of various reasons and she just constantly had to keep dropping her Highers, I feel like she was forgotten.”
One of the group said that when a friend of his had been off sick, he had joined the class via Facetime to keep up with the work. They were very enthusiastic about the possibility of using digital technology to support children not able to attend school – though one noted that some schools do not allow Wi-Fi which would prevent this.
“help fund the virtual stuff, make it more easy to access”.
- “They have reduced the Wi-Fi quality, i think to stop people from using their phones, but that’s no use if you want to learn virtually.”
Physical Education (PE)
The group highlighted that PE classes were a particular barrier for some children.
“The culture and environment in PE/sports is really off putting for lots of people.”
“If you’re not “good” at sport, if you’re not one of the “PE kids” it’s like you don’t matter and are just left to it, you become disengaged.”
“If they have PE some people might just not come in.”
Transport
Children and young people are provided with a bus pass which allows free travel on buses throughout Scotland. In some areas, school buses are also provided but this provision has been reduced in recent years. YAG members said that even getting to their local school could be a barrier to attending school.
“It’s about where your school is in relation to where you live.”
“They have closed a bridge down on an essential bus route”
The range of subjects available in schools was highlighted in This is our lives – it matters a lot. In some areas, arrangements are made for senior pupils to study subjects at college or another school but the Young Advisors felt that transport was a significant barrier to doing this, both in urban and rural areas. Whilst local authorities previously provided taxis for these children, many had stopped since the introduction of the free bus pass, meaning children had to use infrequent, inconvenient and unreliable public buses.
“It takes two buses to get to the school that does do the subjects I want to” (YAG member – large city).
“When I was picking that subject at a different school they said they’d put taxis on but then when it came to it they cut them”
“In rural villages – remote places have no buses servicing them, you can’t get to college without a parent giving you a lift because the school bus doesn’t go to college” (YAG member – rural area)
They also highlighted situations where they couldn’t go to a school that was nearby, because it was in a different local authority.
“In [rural local authority] they have to go to [school also in local authority] even though its miles away and they have to through [city] to get there”.
Poverty
The YAG members felt that poverty could be a significant barrier to education. Although there are no fees payable for secondary education in Scotland, they highlighted the extra costs that families faced. This included providing equipment and books, the cost of school trips.
“school is free…right? But there’s a lot of purchases that you have to make. So its free…but is it?”
“It’s like an “in-app purchase”
“We have to get our own calculators and sometimes text books, that builds up”
“Trips – any extras that are going to improve your basic experience of school are not free”
“It gets worse as you get older, what you have to pay, more books, equipment”
Scotland has a long history of providing a hot meal during the school day. This has traditionally been provided free to children from families on social security benefits and low incomes. The Scottish Government now provide universal free school meals up until the 5th year of primary school, however meals at secondary school are still means tested.
“There’s a family I know and they have 6 kids. They can’t come to school because they can’t get fed because they dont meet the criteria for free school meals”
“Free school meals don’t always deal with dietary needs”
YAG members also felt that sometimes children living in poverty were treated differently, that schools made assumptions about what they wanted to do and one commented that at her school children in poverty were much more likely to leave school early.
- “If you are living in poverty – you might think “I’m not making any money here, I might as well just leave”
Barriers to learning
In addition to barriers to physically being in school the group also discussed a range of factors which prevented children from realising their right to education, even if they were attending schools. In particular, they highlighted differences in teaching styles and teacher attitudes that could have a significant impact on their learning. Not all were the fault of individual teachers, with school cultures, teacher morale, resources and the availability of subject teachers being factors.
“It can impact how much joy you get from learning and school, it impacts your view of the subject if it’s taught well and with passion”
“They should be enthusiastic about teaching you and about their subject.”
“Poor quality teaching can make you feel disengaged.”
“Teachers should be resourced well enough to handle all the different needs in a class.”
“If you’ve had run ins with a teacher you might be scared to go into school.”
“Teachers have different teacher styles and pupils don’t always understand.”
“We’re struggling to get teachers in inner city, urbanised places so I can’t imagine how hard it would be if its rural.”
Do some children have a harder time/greater challenges attending public secondary school
Disability and other support needs
The YAG members felt that children did not always get the additional support they needed, if they were disabled or had other support needs (i.e. for young carers and children in alternative care). They were aware that resources were limited, that some services had been cut and that accessing support was not always straightforward.
“If you can’t self advocate and you have additional needs, they’ll fall through the gaps and be left with a gaping hole in their education”
“all the Support for Learning jobs got cut and there is only one person left”
“I have quite high support for learning needs and I’m so worried about the new school I’m taking some subjects at – what will the department be like, what will the culture be like? Will they be welcoming?”
The group recognised that a child may be at school but not realising their right to education in full.
“Getting through the door is one thing but then you might not be accessing all your lessons”.
Other groups
“Some people are caregivers for their family, they need to worry about them before they can think about coming to school”
There’s a big issue at my school which is that young people in from agricultural backgrounds, farms, yards etc, they’re normally the ones that don’t get on well with school. They’re often working and trying to balance their farm duties with school and don’t see the point.
What should governments do to make that all children can attend public secondary education for free.
The group had a number of ideas to address the barriers they had spoken about. Online learning, which was used extensively during the pandemic, was raised during the engagement that formed the “This is our lives – it matters a lot” report and the YAG members highlighted it as a solution both to issues around subject choice and for children unable to attend school for health reasons.
“They should fund the virtual stuff… even for part of the week so kids can access more easily.”
Geographical boundaries didn’t always make sense for young people – some found their choices limited by local authority boundaries or school catchments.
“Catchment areas are important – the closest school isn’t always your catchment schools. Catchments should be based on travel to school.”
Some had examples of good support which had made a huge difference. .
“At my school they hold loads of info that i think is positive because you can combat some of those barriers if you know about them, by offering alternatives like apprenticeships. But not all schools are as good at that.”
[1] Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2003 section 6.
[2] CYPCS, 2024. Strategic Plan. https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/our-plan-2024-28/
[3] CYPCS, 2024. Film: Strategic Plan 2024-2028. https://www.instagram.com/p/C7jVE-KBxZo/
[4] CYPCS, 2025. Study support session with e-sgoil were great… https://www.cypcs.org.uk/news-and-stories/study-support-sessions-with-e-sgoil-were-great-it-was-a-very-flexible-way-of-learning/
[5] eSgoil, 2024. Scotland’s Assembly: World Children’s Day. https://www.e-sgoil.com/bge-primary/scotlands-assembly/scotlands-assembly-world-childrens-day-2024/
[6] CYPCS, 2025. Film: Young Advisors. https://www.instagram.com/p/DHlMnQuNWT7/
[7] CYPCS, 2025. This is our lives – it matters a lot”. https://www.cypcs.org.uk/wpcypcs/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/March-2025-Education-reform-report-FINAL.pdf
[8] CYPCS, 2025. https://www.instagram.com/p/DH3mSLPtM-i/
[9] ENOC. What is ENYA. https://enoc.eu/what-we-do/enya/